If any of you read “Dating F.A.M.E NYC Style”, then you know is one of my favorite places to go on a date is the Metropolitan Museum of Art and soon visitors will have more to view thanks to the emeritus chairman of cosmetics giant Estee Lauder.  Leonard A. Lauder, who is one of the foremost collectors of cubist art, has donated 78 Cubist pieces worth more than $1 billion dollars.

The collection includes 33 works by Pablo Picasso, 17 by Georges Braque, 14 by Juan Gris, and 14 by Fernand Léger. Picasso’s “The Scallop Shell” from 1912, “Woman in an Armchair” from 1913, and “Still Life with Cards, Glasses, and a Bottle of Rum ‘Vive la France’” from 1914 are the biggest gems of this donated treasure chest.   The collection will premiere in 2014 at The Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, giving Thomas Crown wannabes another reason to salivate.  A $22 million endowment from Lauder and other museum trustees and benefactors will fund the construction for the new research center.

Photo:  Georges Braque’s 1908 “Arbres a líEstaque (Trees at LíEstaque)” –  AP